LANCASTER, Ohio — The parents who built a locking, steel-mesh cage around their 4-year-old
daughter’s bunk bed told a judge that they meant only to keep her safe.

Alyssa Terry wandered at night. She was found by the kitchen stove and the wood-burning stove,
outside on the swing set and, the scariest time, one morning at 5 standing near Rt. 188, Jamie M.
Curnell and Russell D. “Dave” Terry told the judge yesterday.

Fairfield County Common Pleas Judge Richard E. Berens sentenced the Pleasantville couple to
suspended prison terms after they each pleaded guilty to three counts of child endangering in a
plea agreement. The offense is a third-degree felony punishable by a maximum of three years in
prison.

Both were sentenced to 18 months on one of the counts, to be served consecutively to 30 months
on each of the other two counts. But they will not have to serve any of the 78-month sentences if
they complete five years of probation.

Berens also sentenced both parents to 180 days in the county jail, which actually comes out to
109 days for her and 119 days for him because of credit for time served.

Berens added, however, that he might not impose the jail time after January and May reviews of
how they are doing on probation, including continuing counseling and cooperating with county Child
Protective Services.

Curnell, 33, and Terry, 36, told the judge that they built an enclosure around Alyssa’s bunk bed
to stop her from wandering.

“I thought it was my job to protect her,” Curnell said. “I know now that the way we went about
it should have been different. At the time, we did what we had to do to protect our daughter.”

The couple built the enclosure just before Memorial Day last year, Curnell said. “I never
thought of it as a cage. I was trying to protect my daughter.”

Deputy sheriffs discovered the homemade cage, which enclosed a bare, dirty mattress on the bunk
bed, when they responded to a domestic-violence complaint at the couple’s house about 1:30 a.m. on
July 10, 2012. The girl was awake and not in the bed when the deputies arrived.

“I was afraid of taking any chances,” Terry told the judge. “I tried to protect my daughter. I
feel bad about what happened. Trying to protect my daughter, I busted up my family.”

Curnell’s attorney, Kristin Burkett, said the couple faced a tough choice between restraining
their daughter or taking the chance that she would wander into danger. Had Alyssa walked onto Rt.
188 and been hit by a car, the couple would have been prosecuted for that, Burkett said.

Burkett noted that other parents also have had problems with young children wandering at
night.

That’s true. Online blogs for parents of young children address the issue. Most advise parents
to use safety gates and child-proof doorknob covers to keep children in their bedrooms at
night.

Alyssa, now 5, and the couple’s son, who is nearly 2, live with Terry’s uncle. The children have
supervised visits with their parents for eight hours weekly. Curnell’s other sons, who are 8 and
14, live with their paternal grandmother.

Child Protective Services is working with Curnell and Terry on a family-reunification plan.